by M. J. Duncan
Contents
Other Books by MJ Duncan
Copyright
Title Page
prologue
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
thirty-nine
epilogue
acknowledgements
Other Books by MJ Duncan
Second Chances
Veritas
Spectrum
Atramentum
Symphony in Blue
Heist
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by MJ Duncan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior written permission from the author.
Cover art © 2019 by MJ Duncan
Mallory Collingswood pressed her violin case behind her hip and held the door to Higher Ground open for the young mother who was shepherding a small child ahead of her. The little girl had a smaller version of her mother’s teal and white patterned takeaway cup in her hands, and she beamed as she lifted her cup and shared quite proudly, “I got hot cocoa with whipped cream!”
Even though it was the end of June, the weather was especially dreary, and Mallory smiled at the girl as she replied, “That sounds marvelous. Make sure you mind your step, then, so you don’t spill.”
“I will,” the girl promised as she turned and began walking away with her cup clasped tightly between her hands.
“Cheers,” the mother murmured as she hurried to catch up to her daughter.
“Of course,” Mallory replied with a nod before she ducked inside the coffee shop.
She had discovered Higher Ground by accident after she had returned to London roughly ten months ago when her train had broken-down two stops into her journey to work, and she had been forced to look for alternate transportation to the Barbican. The sky had opened up the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Covent Garden tube station and, instead of waiting for a taxi in the deluge, she’d hurried across the street toward the warmly lit coffee shop.
The soft jazz that had been playing through the speakers hidden behind the rough-hewn rafters overhead and the exposed weathered brick on the walls combined to give the shop a laid-back, urban-bohemian vibe that she had fallen in love with before the front door had completely closed behind her. She’d been immediately drawn to the large gallery-styled framed prints of dancers on stage at the nearby Royal Opera House that filled the walls. The beautiful lines of the dancers’ bodies and the composition of the lighting were such that she often found it difficult to look away. She knew nothing about ballet beyond vague memories of the time her parents had taken her to a performance of The Nutcracker before she began at The Royal Academy of Music, but there was no mistaking the artistry or the skill captured in each frame.
All she had been looking for that day was shelter, a place to wait out the squall until she could order a cab, and instead she’d found what had quickly become her favorite place in all of London.
She had been stopping by on her way into work ever since for a cappuccino and a positively sinful, homemade turtle croissant.
She had always been a creature of habit, and after having what felt like her entire life yanked out from under her roughly ten months earlier, she had greedily grabbed on to the security a daily routine provided her.
Routine, after all, unlike people, wouldn’t break her heart.
“Hey, Mallory,” Lena Black, one of the owners of Higher Ground, greeted her when she made it to the counter. Lena was positively tiny in both stature and frame, with short black hair, keen green eyes, and a pointed chin that Mallory would sometimes tease made her look like one of Tinkerbell’s friends from those newer films she had seen when she was helping Will watch his niece. “Your usual?”
“Please.” Mallory smiled and nodded as she reached for her wallet inside the leather Zegna briefcase that usually acted as her purse. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Hey, I’ve got the place staffed tonight—you want to go out to dinner?”
“I’d love to, but I can’t. It’s the last night of the season. Maybe next week?” Mallory handed Lena her card. “I have the next ten days off before we leave to go on tour,” she added wryly as she tucked her long blond hair behind her ears and made a mental note to schedule an appointment with her stylist before she left the country.
“Sure. Let me see what the employee schedule looks like, and I’ll let you know what days work for me. You lot are going to America, right?”
Mallory nodded and counted off the stops on her fingers, “Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco.” She would have preferred to avoid California altogether, but at least they weren’t going anywhere near Los Angeles.
“Sounds fun.” Lena grinned and handed Mallory her card back.
“It should be,” Mallory agreed as she slipped it into the fold of her wallet. She would put it away properly later. “Though, by the end of those seven weeks, I am going to be more than ready to come home.”
“I’ll bet. As much as I enjoyed touring, there was nothing better than sleeping in my own bed when it was over,” Lena commiserated. She had been a dancer with The Royal Ballet before her ankle had decided it’d had enough of being en pointe, and they had spent many a morning chatting idly about the many similarities between dancing and music. Today wasn’t going to be one of those days, however, because Lena glanced apologetically at the queue of customers forming behind Mallory. “I can’t wait to hear all about it. Make sure to share pictures on your Instagram so I can live vicariously through you.”
“I will,” Mallory promised with a smile as she moved out of the way to allow the person behind her to approach the register.
“I’ll have Clark bring your order out once it’s ready.” Lena tipped her head toward the back of the shop where Mallory always sat.
“Cheers, darling,” Mallory murmured.
Lena winked at her before she turned her attention to the gentleman who had been waiting.
Mallory made her way toward her favorite spot near the electric fireplace. It was the quietest spot in the shop, far enough from the traffic flow that it was almost its own little world. She sighed contentedly as she slipped her violin case and briefcase from her shoulder and set them beneath the table so they’d be out of the way. Even though it was June, there was still a bit of a nip in the morning air—or perhaps it was just that her blood had yet to properly thicken after returning home from Los Angeles—and she angled her chair in a way
that let her feel the warmth of the flames against her back.
Her cappuccino and scone were delivered by a fresh-faced university student not long after she had made herself comfortable, and she murmured her thanks as the boy wiped his hands on his jeans and turned to leave. She glanced at a couple a few tables over as she moved the scone to the side and pulled her coffee closer, and relaxed in her seat as she retrieved her phone from the pocket of her jacket. With an hour to kill before she needed to get back on the tube to head over to the Barbican for her final rehearsal of the season, she opened her Twitter app as she reached for her coffee.
While her bosses at the London Symphony Orchestra didn’t require quite the level of a social media presence as she’d had in Los Angeles, they still expected her to post something a few times a week. If she were to be honest, her thoughts on their performance this evening ran more along the lines of, I made it a whole season without breaking down! and hopefully next season will be easier—but that wasn’t exactly the kind of sentiment the board would appreciate. She was supposed to be engaging and upbeat, representing the LSO in its best possible light, so she instead typed out a quick, Last performance of the season is tonight! You lot are going to LOVE it!
Obligation fulfilled, she scrolled through her feed to see if any of her old friends or colleagues had tweeted anything about their performance the night before. She smiled when she saw a dozen or so tweets clustered together in a way that made her think the Phil’s first violins had gathered together backstage after their show and fired off their tweets all at once to punctuate the end of their season. They were all pretty standard and nearly identical to what she would be tweeting later that evening—What a great year, can’t wait for next season! or some similar sentiment of fondness for the season they had just wrapped. She liked each of their tweets and replied to those few friends she still kept in touch with, offering her congratulations, but it was the tweet from LA Phil’s official account that brought her scrolling to a complete stop.
@LAPhil is proud to present ‘Symphony in Blue,’ a modern masterpiece composed by our very own Gwen Harrison! Click the link for the video…
She frowned as she reread the tweet slowly, and then a third time, lingering on the shape of each letter to make sure she was reading the words correctly. A leaden feeling, cold and bitter and impossible to ignore settled in her stomach as she stared at those ellipses for the fourth time. Her chest tightened as the truth sank in, making it hard to breathe.
Gwen—the woman she had once thought she would marry—wrote music.
And she’d had absolutely no idea.
God, had she even known her at all?
Mallory put her coffee back onto the table and pushed it away. Just the idea of drinking the bitter brew was enough to turn her stomach, and she instead reached for the wireless headphones she kept in her bag. Really, she should have just kept scrolling. Or closed the app altogether. She didn’t want to tarnish what remained of her fond memories of her time in Los Angeles, but the bright blue YouTube link at the end of the tweet was a siren’s call she was helpless to resist.
As soon as the headphones connected to her phone, she pressed her thumb to the link. She glanced up at the sound of a bag hitting a chair at the next table and watched as the owner of the bag slipped gracefully into the chair opposite it. The woman was young, just barely into her twenties at the most, with flawless olive skin and wavy dark curls streaked with auburn highlights that tickled her chiseled jawline. The woman yawned as she stretched her long, lean legs beneath her little café table, unexpectedly defined muscles flexing against the tight fabric, and shook her head as she tugged at the sleeves of the pink, long-sleeved tee that clung to her petite frame. She looked both fragile and impossibly strong at the same time, and Mallory was grateful for the sound of her old conductor’s voice coming through her headphones that forced her to look away before the woman caught her staring.
She willed herself to ignore the almost haunted-looking reflection of her pale blue eyes on the screen as she focused her attention on the video. It clearly began toward the end of Rhode’s introduction because he was turned toward Gwen with an outstretched hand and a hint of a smile visible beyond his shock of wild curls. She held her breath as she watched Gwen set her bow on her music stand and pass her cello to Roland Yves before she pushed herself to her feet, and her throat tightened with emotion as she watched Gwen make her way across the stage to where Rhode was waiting for her.
With her dark hair pulled back into a loose chignon, drawing her delicate features and stunning blue eyes into even sharper focus, Gwen was more beautiful than her dreams remembered; and even after close to a year of no contact, the sight of her smiling shyly as she fiddled with the microphone made her heart ache. But if she thought the sight of Gwen was painful, then listening to her speech was pure agony. The way she spoke about her new partner, Dana, with such obvious love in her voice and expression, was a dagger to the heart Mallory hadn’t realized she could still suffer.
For all her faults—and she was painfully aware that she had many, many of them—she had truly loved Gwen Harrison.
She sucked in a deep breath and blinked away the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes as Gwen’s introduction ended and she made her way back to her seat. Anger flared in her chest when she spotted Luke grinning at Gwen and giving her two cheesy thumbs up as the camera panned over the musicians seated on stage. Knowing how close he and Gwen were, she had tried so damn hard to win him over when she and Gwen had started dating, but he had never warmed up to her, and after close to six months of trying, she had given up. Part of her couldn’t help but wonder if it was her inability to gain his trust that had ultimately contributed to the downfall of their relationship.
The camera thankfully panned out from his impish, annoying face to take in the entire stage, and she blew out a shaky breath as the anger she felt toward Luke was replaced by an icy sadness of just how much she had lost.
She swallowed thickly as she watched Rhode take his place on the rostrum, his hair even more unruly than she had remembered, and held her breath as he lifted his hands to ready the orchestra. There was a long pause as he looked over the musicians before his hands dropped—a move she knew was designed to give Gwen a moment to gather herself—and then the music began, and she was sent reeling.
The symphony Gwen had crafted was rich and layered and nuanced in a way that brought tears to her eyes. Not just for the love she had lost, but because she had never been allowed to see this part of her. Had never once been shown even the slightest hint that such depth and complexity and undiluted talent existed within Gwen.
Because the music she was listening to was truly phenomenal.
Each note, every bar, flowed together so perfectly and conveyed so much emotion that it was all she could do to keep the tears that threatened at bay. Even after listening for only a few minutes, she knew that the tweet that had led her to the video had not been exaggerating in the slightest. Symphony in Blue was a masterpiece in every sense of the word, and her heart broke all over again as she watched Gwen’s body move as she played, her face that beautiful mask of concentration she had found so much comfort in seeing across the stage when they had performed together.
She ached to reach out and brush the errant strand of hair away from Gwen’s brow, to tuck it behind her ear and lay the softest of kisses to her lips. But she wouldn’t ever have that opportunity again, because she had lost her. And Dana—god, how she wished she could forget the blonde’s name but she couldn’t, just like she couldn’t forget one word that she and Gwen had said the night her world had come crashing down—Dana had found her.
But maybe it was a good thing; because Gwen seemed more alive than she remembered ever seeing her. Even through her mask of concentration there was the slightest hint of a smile playing on her lips, and she looked tanned and healthy and happy. And for as much as she hated knowing that Dana was undoubtedly the cause of that change, she was also glad to see it. Glad t
o know that Gwen was loved and taken care of.
Even if she wasn’t the one doing it.
She wiped at her eyes as she turned off the video, unable to bear watching any longer even though, by the tracker on the bottom of the screen, there were still close to twenty minutes left of the performance. She had thought that she’d finally begun to move past everything she had left behind in California, but this video and the near-crippling ache it elicited in her chest was proof that she hadn’t.
Part of her wondered if she ever would.
She had long since accepted her own role in the demise of their relationship—the painful words Gwen had spoken that night had landed with enough weight that it had taken her a good few weeks to feel like she had her feet back under her—but this was just too much. Listening to the woman she had loved play the notes she’d written for another was one injustice too many to suffer, and she wasn’t strong enough to watch the video until it ended. She bit the inside of her cheek as she wiped away the evidence of her distress, and shook her head as she removed her headphones and tucked them back into her briefcase.
Someday, she hoped, she might be strong enough to listen to the full piece.
But not today.
The woman she had noticed earlier at the next table caught her eye as she straightened, and Mallory sighed when the woman did not look away. She forced a tight smile that she hoped conveyed that she neither needed nor wanted the attention, but some of the turmoil she was feeling must have shown through because the woman’s warm brown eyes softened with concern.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
Mallory dipped her head in a small nod. “Yes. Of course.”
The woman smiled kindly and, instead of taking the hint—probably because she had the sweetest-sounding American accent and the gods clearly thought the video wasn’t enough for Mallory to suffer through for one day—pressed on. “Of course you are,” she murmured, a hint of a drawl slipping into her voice as she raked a hand through her hair that glinted red and gold in the overhead lights. “Stiff upper lip and all that, right?”